It Stings the Eyes
by sincerelymendacious
Summary: Short Zombie Au fic for Halloween


Her bed was empty.

The door had been open, which had been his first clue that something was off-Phoebe always kept her door closed when she was in her room, though she never locked it. Her bed was unmade, the sheets rumpled and her pillows askew, and the dresser drawers were still partially open, a sleeve from one of her shirts hanging out of it. Mikhail frowned, more disappointed than concerned. Obviously, she had been awoken suddenly in the middle of the night, but for what reason?

Had there been another attack? No, he would have been alerted to it long before now, and besides, he hadn't seen any frantic activity going on around the stately old manor that the Psychonauts had requisitioned as a temporary encampment to indicate that that was the case. Still standing in the doorway of her room, Mikhail telekinetically tucked the sleeve back into the drawer and closed it, thinking. There was a small group of survivors camped on the grounds surrounding the manor. A good chunk of those survivors were having trouble dealing with the emotional aftermath of what they had been through. He smoothed the sheets and set the blankets and pillows right. Phoebe wasn't a therapist, not yet (though she was working very hard to change that) but right now the patient to therapist ratio was not in the Psychonaut's favor, and they were more than happy to take any help that they could get. She was probably down at the camp, helping guide some poor civilian out of their trauma-induced nightmares.

That thought in mind, Mikhail turned and left her room, closing the door behind him. He was tired, but not exhausted, despite not having slept for some time. His day had been spent acting as a translator for Agent Muslch, the squad leader, as she negotiated a defense plan with Maladzyechna's leaders. Translating was tedious work, and he didn't much care for all the sitting around, but he understood the importance of it- the epidemic had been worldwide, but some places had it worse than others, and Eastern Europe in particular had been among the hardest hit.

He probably would have woken her up, had she been in her bed. She would have glared at him, annoyed, before grumpily informing him that he had his own room across the hall, without actually telling him that he should go to it. Nor would she have stopped him from crawling into the bed beside her, or from pulling her closer to him.

But she hadn't been in her bed, and Mikhail, though he did in fact have both a room and a bed across the hall, didn't feel like sleeping without at least seeing her first. He made his way through the hall and down the stairs, stopping at the entrance to take his jacket and hat off of the coat hook before opening the front door and going back out into the frigid Belarusian night.

He paused immediately upon exiting, a faint smell that he hadn't noticed on his way into the manor catching him off guard. It smelled like…smoke, with the hint of something foul intertwined with it, something that he couldn't quite identify at this distance. It was coming from the north, and he turned his head in that direction. In the distance, perhaps half a kilometer away, a column of smoke was rising and dissipating into the inky black sky. He hadn't seen it before- Maladzyechna was located south of their encampment, and he had entered the manor through one of the back doors. He exhaled a cold breath and walked quickly towards the northern gate, his footsteps crunching on the thin layer of snow that covered the ground. He had been intending to go the survivor's camp, but there was no point now. Phoebe wasn't there.

Agent Hagler was leaning against the fence when he got there, smoking a cigarette. Mikhail gave the older agent a nod. "Trouble?" he asked, thumbing towards the rising smoke.

Hagler shrugged. "Found a few stragglers wandering around," he explained, his voice bland and his beady eyes indifferent. "Not a big deal. We took them out real quick."

"Ah," Mikhail replied, putting his hands in his pockets. "A shame that I missed it. Could have done with a good battle to end the day." He kept his eyes on dirt road ahead, watching for any vehicles coming up the road.

Hagler regarded him coolly. "Your pretty girlfriend is up there."

"She's good to have in a fight." That statement was true, and Mikhail wasn't so humble that he wouldn't admit that it was partially due to the fact that she'd been trained in combat by him personally. She was also one of the most skilled pyrokinetics that he knew.

"She wasn't in the fight," Hagler said as he tapped his cigarette. Hot ash fell to the ground, the grey staining the white. "They're making her burn the bodies."

The smell of smoke and burning human flesh seemed to get stronger, in spite of the distance. In his pockets his fists clenched. He didn't like Hagler's tone at all, but he tried to outwardly match the man's apathetic attitude. "Eh, we do what we have to," he said, nonchalant. "She can handle it."

Hagler took a long, slow drag of what remained of his cigarette, his eyes never leaving Mikhail's. "She was crying when I left," he said, flicking the stub at Mikhail's boots.

Phoebe denied this upon her return. "It was from the smoke," she said tiredly, wiping a stray bit of ash off of her cheek. It smeared on her skin.


End file.
